BY KINGSLEY IGHOBOR
Each year, governments, journalists,
development experts and others look forward to the United Nations Development
Programme's Human Development Report. The report includes a ranking of
countries based on life expectancy, literacy, quality of life and so on.
Once it is released, governments and citizens
of countries with high rankings immediately trumpet their achievements. Those
with lower rankings, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was
last in 2011, come in for criticism.
When UNDP announced it would launch its
first-ever Africa Human Development Report (AHDR) in May, many expected that it
would also include a general country ranking. Instead, the regional report
focuses on the theme "Towards a food secure future," with extensive
analyses and recommendations on that topic. If the intention of the 190-page
report was to generate debate on filling empty stomachs in Africa with
nutritious food, that goal is being accomplished - probably beyond
expectations.
Setting the tone
Helen Clark, UNDP administrator, and
Tegegnework Gettu, director of the programme's Africa bureau, set the tone in
the opening pages. Ms. Clark writes: "It is my hope that this first Africa
Human Development Report will energize a debate on how to strengthen food security
... and lead to more decisive action."
Mr. Gettu's preface is a provocative clarion
call on African leaders. "Africa is not fated to starve," he writes.
"That is an affront to both its dignity and its potential.... Africa must
stop begging for food.... Had the African governments over the last 30 years
met their people's aspirations, the report would not be necessary. One quarter
of the people in sub-Saharan Africa would not be undernourished, and one third
of African children would not be stunted."
Nigeria's former President Olusegun Obasanjo
echoed Mr. Gettu's theme, calling the report "an indictment of African
leadership in the area of food production. It tells us what we know: that the
poverty of Africa is the making of African leaders over the years."
During Asia's green revolution, for example,
many Asian countries spent up to 20 per cent of their budgets on agriculture,
while African countries currently spend between 5 to 10 per cent on the sector.
This is despite African leaders' commitment in 2003 to allocate at least 10 per
cent of national budgets to agriculture. The report notes that Africa spends
more on the military than on agriculture.
Hunger amidst plenty
Launched in Nairobi, Kenya, and
simultaneously in five other African countries (Zambia, Ghana, Ethiopia,
Senegal and South Africa), the report further highlights what Mr. Gettu
considers a harsh paradox of suffering amidst plenty. "Hunger and
malnutrition remain pervasive on a continent with ample agricultural
endowments," he says. "Africa has the knowledge, the technology, and
the means to end hunger and insecurity."
The report raises an alarm over poverty in
sub-Saharan Africa, calling the region the world's most food insecure. Up to 25
per cent of sub-Saharan Africa's 856 million people are undernourished, with 15
million people facing serious risks in the Sahel and an equal number in the
Horn of Africa.
The worsening food situation in sub-Saharan
Africa dampens glowing reports on Africa's fast-growing economies, which have
expanded by an annual average of 5 to 6 per cent during the past decade.
However, notes Ms. Clark, "Impressive GDP growth rates in Africa have not
translated into the elimination of hunger and malnutrition."
At the Nairobi launch, Ms. Clark canvassed
coordinated solutions. "Building a food-secure future for all Africans
will only be achieved if efforts span the entire development agenda."
Without good roads, for example, surplus food cannot enter the market.
Important steps
The report lists steps that can be taken
right away to stem the tide of food insecurity: "greater agricultural
productivity of smallholder farmers; more effective nutrition policies,
especially for children; greater community and household resilience to cope
with shocks; and wider popular participation and empowerment, especially of
women and the rural poor."
Many African leaders are already picking up
on various aspects of the report. Africa's first elected female president,
Ellen Jonson-Sirleaf of Liberia, considers the role of women in food security
"profound and critical." According to President Johnson-Sirleaf,
better education and access to food assets such as land, capital and labour
will likely increase productivity by 20 per cent. The report urges countries to
"end decades of bias against agriculture and women," because women's
education can lower malnutrition in children more than does an increase in
household income. Compared with other regions, African women have the least
access to land.
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, who co-launched
the report in Nairobi, linked nutritious food to mental and physical wellbeing,
stressing that "it also enables people to exercise their freedoms and
capabilities in different fields." Kenya is rated as a high-risk
food-insecure country. President Kibaki attributed this to the impact of
drought in the past five years, although Kenya's agricultural sector has been
revived from a negative growth of 2.3 per cent in 2009 to a positive 6.3 per
cent by 2010.
Opinion is unanimous that climate change will
have a negative impact on agriculture. "Africa is most susceptible to
variations in agro-climate," maintains Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles
Zenawi, who notes that "climate change exacerbates the problem of food insecurity."
In addition, the report explains that the semi-arid region from Senegal to Chad
and the Horn of Africa, particularly Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia,
have all been affected by severe climate conditions.
While acknowledging the impact of drought on
food security, the report notes that famines often get the headlines, even
though uneven access to food due to low incomes is as much a problem. "The
silent crises of chronic malnourishment and seasonal hunger do not receive
nearly enough attention." It adds that increased agricultural production
does not necessarily guarantee food security unless there are improvements in
access to health, better roads, more job opportunities and empowerment of
women.
Bright spots
Notwithstanding the deplorable food situation
in sub-Saharan Africa, there are many bright spots, including Mr. Obasanjo's
Nigeria, where the government's Agricultural Transformation Agenda is expected
to ensure food sufficiency and create 3.5 million jobs by 2015. Ghana has
already halved poverty by boosting cocoa farmers, becoming the first
sub-Saharan country to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal, which is
to reduce by half the proportion of people living in poverty and hunger by
2015.
Malawi undertook a huge seed and fertilizer
subsidy programme and turned its food deficit into a 1.3 million tonne surplus
in just two years. In Senegal child malnutrition was lowered from 34 to 20 per
cent between 1990 and 2005 through increased national agricultural budgets. By
increasing agriculture's budget from 1.6 per cent in 2008 to 7.7 per cent in
2009, Sierra Leone grew 784,000 tonnes of rice, above the domestic requirement
of 550,000 tonnes.
As the continent posts world-beating economic
growth rates, it needs to move faster to fill empty stomachs with nutritious
food. If it achieves that goal, then the release of UNDP's first Africa Human
Development Report may be seen as an important contribution to that effort.
